COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio Department of Health says it’s ending grants and contracts that send money to Planned Parenthood after a divided federal appeals court upheld a state anti-abortion law that blocks public money for the group.
The department notified recipients and contractors Thursday that it will end that funding within a month to comply with the law, unless the court delays the effect of its ruling as Planned Parenthood requested
The department says the law requires it to ensure state and certain federal funds aren’t “used to perform or promote nontherapeutic abortions.”
Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio President Iris Harvey tells The Columbus Dispatch the decision is “heartless.”
The law targeted funding that Planned Parenthood receives through Ohio Department of Health. That money is mostly from the federal government.
Meanwnhile, a judge is temporarily blocking part of a new Ohio law that bans the abortion method of dilation and evacuation in most cases.
Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett in Cincinnati stopped short of saying whether the procedure commonly used in second-trimester abortions is unconstitutional. He says he wants to hear more from both sides in a pending lawsuit before deciding that.
The lawsuit by Planned Parenthood argues the ban is unconstitutional because it puts an undue burden on women seeking abortions after about 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The ban signed last year by then-Gov. John Kasich took effect Friday, but Barrett’s Thursday order blocks enforcement of it in certain circumstances for two weeks.
The Ohio attorney general’s office is defending the law’s constitutionality and asked Barrett to reconsider.